Dust
by at-kb
Summary: It's AC 204.  Trowa was never found. Quatre never mastered the Zero System.  Libra fell.  AU, dystopia, 3x4, kinda. T for themes of war and cursing.
1. Chapter 1

Dust

It was cold in the hangar, but then it always was cold. Today the temperature outside was forty degrees below zero, and this was Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The sky was always slightly sepia-tinted, too, but he didn't know whether that was because of all the dust cloaking the planet, or if it was just an effect of the treated glass in the environment-suit helmets. He couldn't remember ever seeing the sky bare.

It didn't matter, really. The roof of the hanger was so high he could barely see it from the concrete floor, and more often than not he took his sleep in a cocoon of greasy blankets under the belly of the behemoth he was currently repairing. The ringing out of hammers, the hiss of torches, the groan of metal were the sounds of his life; his landscape was the wires that lifted mechanics to the upper shells of the ships, the rattling metal staircases, the steel walkways from which the higher-ups could watch the little world of their own creation.

He listened carefully now, huddled up under his blanket, his back to the meters-high wheel of a shuttle, as the little portable TV chattered in front of him. Nobody else was around for meters, possibly even miles. Not that there was anything to overhear. The TV never had real answers. The world is this way because of war. Because of weakness. Because of evil. Every once in a while, members of the Cult of the Rose were caught and publicly executed; they seemed to believe the world could only be saved by a man named Treize Khushrenada, who had been killed nine years ago by a terrorist. Why did the terrorist kill this man? The TV never said.

Huddled with other mechanics around electric kettles and boiling bowls of noodles, he'd heard stories about Treize Khushrenada, and about OZ, and about battles in space over the future of the colonies. Everyone had a different story; he'd been a soldier for OZ himself, long ago. Now there was only fighting for the few crops that anyone could manage to grow. ESUN's planes and mobile suits flew out daily to battle with the hold-outs that rejected its rule - those lucky places where sunlight still shone through the dust, who refused to surrender their stores of grain to the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. Hunger was everywhere, although soon enough you learned to ignore your body's crying out. It became just another part of the noise, the dust, the calls to war.

And Queen Relena making announcements on the television. The Queen of the World. Peace was the answer, she said. Peace. Her crown glittered.

And then there was General Merquise, who some people said was Queen Relena's brother. His picture was everywhere. But the one you most often saw on broadcasts was General Catalonia. War was all we had left, she said. Glory can still be ours.

The mechanic sat up slightly. Here, this was what he had been waiting for. The news broadcast switched to the image of a small man behind a podium. Quatre Winner, the scion to the Winner business empire. He was from space, they said, the L4 colony cluster, but he visited Earth often. He was the one who had built and funded the Iria Hospitals all over the Earth and colonies; they were dedicated to healing the wars' injured.

Today, Quatre Winner looked more worried and tired than ever, his dirty-blond hair messy. "We have to work together," he was saying, looking out at the crowd gathered in front of him. "It's the most important thing of all. We _must_ work together, and help each other."

Now the little figure on the television was shaking hands, pressing his hands over the hands of the hundreds crowding to see him. He wore a button-down shirt with its sleeves rolled up, and his hands reached out over and over again to touch those reaching out to him, as though that contact would make a difference.

The television said a lot of things about Quatre Winner - he was trying to create a cult of his own, he was mentally unbalanced, he was trying to weaken the Earth and make it part of his empire, he had been involved with the terrorist group who killed Treize Khushrenada - and he'd been imprisoned more than once for subversion against ESUN and Queen Relena's rule.

But Quatre Winner was still alive for now, still on the TV every now and then, just looking more and more tired, and more and more determined. What the mechanic watched the broadcasts so closely for was the day when Quatre Winner wasn't mentioned any more - when suddenly there would be no Quatre Winner, and there never would have been a Quatre Winner.

It would happen silently, without warning. Just like there had once been a General Une, and then suddenly there was someone else in her place, as though she had never existed.

The segment ended, and then it was another commercial exhorting him to enlist.

He picked up the TV to turn it off, and let his fingers stay for a moment on the place on the screen where Quatre Winner's image had been.

* * *

**A/N:** I am the coolest person, me and my Gundam Wing fanfiction. Oh dear. Anyways, I might write more of this eventually from the other pilots' POVs. (I could pretend like we don't all know this guy is really poor old Trowa with his memories still gone, but let's be realistic here.)

Anyways, let me know what you think! All . . . three people who are still in GW fandom . . . *sniff* How about that Frozen Teardrop, huh? Wish I could write crack that good.


	2. Chapter 2

Snow was falling over the city again, its specks pale gray against the darker gray of the concrete. In the centers of the vacant streets, the trolley lines left caverns in the soft depth of snow, and the enclosed sidewalks with their glass walls were frosted over. A few figures in environment suits hurried down to the signposted subway entrances, but otherwise there the face of the city was still.

After the Impact, people had moved to those cities that had survived, leaving empty little towns buried out in the snow. It was easier this way, maybe; more shared heat, less distance to travel. But they weren't the cities Duo remembered from when he'd first arrived on Earth. There was no neon light, no bustle, no thrill of excitement when day turned into dusk. Hell, there was no day at all, not really. This was the bare edge of existence, scraped out in shreds of light and warmth and food that was barely food.

What the hell was ESUN doing, sending secret MS squads out to attack colonies when their own world was starving? Were they really trying to start another war between the Earth and the colonies? Like it all wasn't bad enough down here already, with people fighting just for something to eat. Like enough people hadn't died up there in space.

_Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins . . . _even the Lord's Prayer asked for food along with eternal salvation.

Duo shook his head and turned away from the window. Heero would never have let this kind of shit happen, he found himself thinking once again. Hey, Heero, where are you when people need you?

He sat down on the rickety little bed, sighing a puff of white into the air. Yeah, sometimes he understood how Quatre felt. Maybe even better than Quatre. Because the point wasn't that Heero was dead, or that Trowa was dead. It was that they'd failed.

Somehow, starting off as defenders of the colonies, they'd ended up self-appointed saviors of the world. The world needed saving, and nobody else was stepping up to the plate, so a bunch of teenagers ended up with the job. Could you blame them for fucking it up?

Yeah, probably.

A klaxon rang out through the building, signifying that dinner was being served. Duo stretched his arms out behind his back, cracking the knuckles inside his fingerless gloves; it was showtime.

He checked the settings on the camera one last time. With any luck, nobody would have found the little modifications he'd made to the broadcast station half a block away. It had taken him a couple of nights playing with frostbite to get in there, too. Ventilation shafts weren't what they used to be, and windows were a lot harder to get through these days, since they weren't designed to open any more.

He pulled off his hat and threw it on the bed, flicked a switch, and—oh, yeah. Goodbye ESUN propaganda, hello God of Death.

"Hi," he said, waving to the camera. "Whatever that was, I'm guessing it was pretty boring, right? I was thinking we could have a little discussion instead. What's been on your mind? Because I've been thinking . . ." He put a hand to his chin. "Remember when there used to be elections sometimes? Whatever happened to that?" He left a pause for that to sink in. "And did you know Princess Queen Relena has been sending mobile suit squads out to attack peaceful colonies?"

That probably wasn't totally fair to Relena, either. The girl he remembered wouldn't have attacked innocent colonies; it was probably Zechs, or the crazy woman, Catalonia. But, Duo thought, if Relena was gonna call herself Queen, she ought to know what was going on in her kingdom. If bad things happened because you weren't paying attention or didn't care, you were responsible all the same.

He tied his little speech up at around the five minute mark, flashed a peace sign to the camera and turned off the relay, just in time for a knock at his door.

"Mr. Yuy?" a voice called through the door. "Meal service is almost over. Are you there?"

"Thanks, hon, but I'm not hungry today," he called back, packing the camera back into its case. "You can have my ration."

It was time to disappear; the station could be tracking his signal by now. He shoved his braid back inside the thick wool hat, suited up inside his environment suit, threw his bags over his shoulder and nonchalantly strolled down the hallway of the little motel-slash-lodging house.

The creaky old motorbike he'd stashed outside needed a few kicks before it came to life, but Duo's mind was already on other things. The next broadcasting station was 350 kilometers away; the next city, 210. He needed to call Hilde and let her know he wasn't dead. Quatre, likewise. He'd be surprised if Quatre hadn't got wind of his little trick yet.

Hilde wouldn't understand, but Quatre would. Sure, Deathscythe was hanging out somewhere in space in a million little scraps, just like Sally had left it when she'd pried Duo from the wreckage nine years ago. But he was still a Gundam pilot, and somehow that meant he was responsible too.

Because Heero had given his life to stop this future.

Duo hit the gas, and the motorbike tore out of the city, toward the white horizon and the gray sky that was still littered with bright falling snow, like falling stars.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for reading! Your thoughts? I tried to keep Duo in-character—not too angsty but not too silly either.

I truly don't know if I'll add more to this story, but I hope I get around to doing it.

Update 7/1: Working on next chapter, Wufei's perspective.


End file.
